GENRE
65 minute work of dance/physical authored by Misa Kelly (choreographer/designer/visual artist/performer/author), Stephen Kelly (musican/choreographer), Marijan Pušavec (dramaturge) in collaboration with principal artists (Mojca Majcen, Trina Mannino).

STRUCTURE
The work has an original score, is structured in 9 sections with video transitions in-between each section, and there is a different costume design/look for each section. The point of departure for exploration was the life of Alma Karlin, drawing from her travelogue, Odessey of a Lonely Woman, and dialog with anthropologist Barbara Tvornec, discussions with Alma Karlin expert Marijan  Pušavec, and visits to exhibitions, the home she lived in, and the grave where she was buried with her partner Thea.

RELEVANCE
The spirit of Alma, her heroic journey, contains nuances/meaning/significance relative to contemporary times for our species, co-existing, awkwardly, on a planet, which on many levels, is in crisis.  Alma, as a visionary beyond her times, and even beyond our times, dared to shed all that she had been reared to believe as the "right" course of action for a woman of her standing, to claim a life that fully manifest the calling of her soul, even when it resulted in being shunned and rejected by her community, she stood strong and never failed to speak out when a voice was needed in a period which I consider one of the darkest annals of human history.

She pursued her life purpose in a fashion truest to the calling of her soul.

Her life is not only a challenge for every individual to pursue a life that fulfills the calling of one's soul/heart/spirit/curiosity, no matter what the sacrifice, but is also an opportunity to understand what the texture of a visionary might look/feel/sound/appear like.

Our planet desperately needs its visionaries to be seen, heard, listened to. Now is the time for creative solutions that problem solve for many problems present in our world seriously out of balance.

The answers may not come out of pre-existing systems that were an important part of our evolutionary process. They may not come from world leaders within the political, religious, business, scientific, or academic arenas.

They may very well come from spirits such as Alma's.

Great adventurers, so different, friends at home might have a hard time wrapping their mind around who she was and what she had to offer.

It was easier to label her as weird, eccentric, a witch even, rather than open their hearts and minds to the wisdom of her life.

It is our responsibility, not only as citizens of the world, but expressions that exist within the mystery of the cosmos, to take direct right action by having the courage to manifest our soul's code, but identify, listen to our visionaries.

Alma.Sama gives expression to these notions, and as artists, we embrace this path for as long as it serves the planet, and cosmos, well.

 

PROCESS
Respective artists kept in weekly dialog via skype/email/facebook chat and would keep the flow going with choreographic tasks, recording of tasks, development of the material into short form sections shown at residencies, showings, and festivals.  The collective had 5 residencies where they gathered to work as a community to move the project forwards (NY, CT, CA, Slovenia).

 

More info..
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ArtBark International's core creatives live in different cities.  Trina Mannino and Joanna Nobbe live in New York, Misa and Stephen Kelly live in California, and Mojca Majcen lives in Celje, Slovenia.

 

To spite the great distance they have found the means to manifest their visions by harnessing the positive power of the internet to communicate and move projects forwards generating a distinctive process.

 

Artists flesh out ideas in skype meetings, chat sessions on social media, and through email correspondence.  Together they generate "tasks" which are carried out in respective cities which are documented on video and then uploaded to YouTube - or transmitted via dropbox - for review by the collective.  Further discussion occurs with choreographic input provided.

 

The collective then meets for intensive residencies to flesh out the ideas fully and performs the outcome of their research for audiences in both the United States and Europe. Residencies have occurred in New York City, Santa Barbara, and in Connecticut at the Dragon's Egg.

 

Additionally, core collaborators on the West Coast have work with a "community company" to generate new work shown in Southern California that is then set on the professional branch of ArtBark.